John Bunyan as a Preacher.
THE world-wide fame of Bunyan as a writer has somewhat thrown into the shade his character as a preacher, but it is not less true that in the latter capacity he was distinguished by rare gifts and extraordinary success. When Charles II. once asked Dr. Owen (one of the greatest divines of that age), “How a learned man, such as he, could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker?” Dr. Owen replied, “May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker’s gift for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.” Bunyan often preached in the open air for the very good reason that the only available buildings were much too small to accommodate the crowds that flocked to hear him. His friend, Charles Doe, says: “When Mr. Bunyan preached in London, if there were but one day’s notice given, there would be more people come together to hear him than the meeting-house would hold. I have seen, to hear him preach, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning lecture by seven o’clock on a working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord’s day in London, at a town’s end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain, at a back door, to be pulled almost over people to get up stairs to his pulpit.” Even during his twelve year’s imprisonment in Bedford Jail he was not altogether debarred from preaching. By the favor of the jailor he was allowed to leave the prison, not merely to visit his family, but to undertake longer journeys to London, Reading, or elsewhere. It is said that during this period he visited the latter town and preached, disguised as a carter with a whip in his hand. Once when absent from jail he became so uneasy, that though the time had not arrived at which he had promised the jailor to return, he resolved to do so at once. As the hour was late, the jailor was surprised to see him and complained of being called out of his bed to re-admit him. But one of his enemies, suspecting the lenity with which Bunyan was treated, arrived shortly after, and demanded to know whether the prisoners were all safe. Being assured that they were, he went on to ask whether Bunyan was in custody. “Yes,” was the reply. “Let me see him.” Bunyan was called and appeared in reply to the sum- mons. When the inquisitor had departed, the jailor said to his prisoner: “You may go out when you will, for you know better when to return than I can tell you.” His vigorous Anglo-Saxon words, his intense earnestness, his command of Scripture illustration, his graphic description of the terrible consequences of sin, and his eloquent setting forth of the peerless glories and attractions of the Saviour of sinners, gave him, under God, ready entrance to the heart of his hearers. “Whoso can speak well is a Man,” said Martin Luther, and seldom has the saying been more finely exemplified than in the case of Bunyan.—Christian Herald.